Even in Malawi, Girls have Cooties (and more about babies)

I just realized this evening how many skills we've acquired since we've been here; we have done everything from childcare to secretarial work, and it seems like everything in between. If anything, we've learned the skill of adapting to whatever situation or job needs doing.

Yesterday we were substitute teachers for first grade (here it's called Standard 1), which was partly a success and partly mass chaos. We almost gave a time-out to Mwiza; we told Bonnie, who is the regular teacher, today that he earned about 3 time-outs, and she laughed. He's a smart student, but listening isn't his strong point. They were pretty fun, though. They are good kids, and we had a good time practicing pronouns and doing art projects and other stuff. Pretty much we did the basic substitute teacher busy-work kind of stuff, but it was pretty hard, and we were definitely tired after we dismissed them.

My favorite part was probably P.E., when we actually got to teach them something new. We taught them the game where you have a partner and you have to toss a bean bag back and forth and step back each time, and if you drop it, you are out. This was something relatively new to them, and it looked like they had fun. It was hilarious, though: boys are boys everywhere. We paired them off randomly, and some of the partners were a boy and a girl, and those boys refused to get close enough to start the game until we threatened to not let them play at all. Stanley was the most vocal about this, but when I told him he could sit out and I would be Laurine's partner, he managed to move to the starting position. Because they listened and got the game, I think they really had a lot of fun with it, and I had fun with them.

On Thursday in the clinic, we saw 6 more babies from the crisis nursery, many of whom were tiny, so small that their heads were about the size as my hand. I made friends with a little one named Tsala, who was afraid of me at first (Mzungu?), but after a while, she started smiling and laughing. She and the others were so cute! The people who work at the crisis nursery seem wonderful, and really seem to love these babies, but I feel like the babies could really use some one-on-one love and attention, and it was wonderful to be able to love them and hold them. With three or four extra pairs of hands, each baby can get a lot more attention, which is probably greatly needed, since they have no mothers to hold them.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience to be around these babies and the people who are so dedicated to caring for them when they need so much. The caretakers who came with the babies showed such a genuine affection for them, calling them all by their names, playing with them, and being interested in their health. They thanked us a lot as we loaded them up to leave, and Dr. Tan was very impressed with how well they had been keeping records on each baby.